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Gone are the days of relying solely on postcards and classifieds to market an HVAC business. Today, the first place many sweating homeowners are going to look for their cooling needs isn’t a magnet stuck to the front of the refrigerator; it’s Google. As reported by Social Media Today, "86% of consumers rely on the internet to find a local business and almost a third (29%) search for local businesses at least once a week."

The scenario isn’t hard to imagine: a hot summer day, a clogged refrigerant line, and a sweaty homeowner thumbing through Google, ready to hit "call" on the first reputable technician they can find. The most important question for any HVAC company, then, is: Will my business show up?

In most markets, competition for both organic traffic and ad placements is fierce. As with every other local service, more and more HVAC companies have gotten wise to their need for search traffic, and determining where to spend marketing dollars is more confusing than ever. So, where should you put your marketing spend?

Consider this: Organic search results on the first page of Google receive around 70% of the clicks. Why? Because most users trust organic search results as authoritative. This doesn't mean users are not clicking on the ads, it just shows the far majority of your customers are scrolling past them. Google ads work, but it's a battlefield. With any HVAC company able to pay to play, that's massive competition for a much smaller audience.

Recently, we had an HVAC client who thought they needed to throw their entire marketing budget into Google PPC to win their market. They shortly found out how bloody the battle can be and suffered financially, as costs rose to over $100 per click with an extremely low conversion rate — not to mention the alleged click fraud that runs rampant.

After this experience, together, we shifted a portion of their focus from PPC to SEO. By the time they got to the Top 3 in organic results, they were able to eliminate their ad spending altogether. In the process, they received a 478% increase in overall traffic.

Why? Competition for the first-page organic spots is far less competitive than competing for HVAC ads. When they reached the top spots, they were in prime real estate for the 70% of customers visiting the organic spots. Whether you outsource SEO or bring it in house, SEO should be a part of your marketing strategy.

How To Get Started

Here are three basic steps you can take on your own:

1. Create a robust HVAC website.

When you create a more robust website than your competitors, you’re already getting a leg up. In addition to having a website that will have more than your standard Home, About and Contact Us pages, you’ll be providing the search engines with more content to index and rank for when your customers are searching online. Start developing pages that speak to the needs of what customers will be searching for in your market, and add some specifics.

For example, create pages for each service type you offer (i.e., Commercial AC Repair, Pool Heater Installation, Residential AC Installation, Heater Repair, etc.) and each market or sub-city where you do business. Since HVAC repair and installation terms are considered local search terms, search results will bring back local companies in the area.

Content on these pages will need to include local modifiers in the text, like cities and communities that you serve. Make sure to provide thorough information about the type of service, including geo-tagged images, info on the city itself and a maps location of your business. By creating these pages, you won't climb the charts yet, but you'll be on the radar when somebody in your city looks for an HVAC service.

2. Take time to optimize each HVAC page.

Once you got the bulk of the content in place, it’s time to optimize so that Google can read it accurately to make sure your page is relevant to what your customers are searching for. Below should get you started:

• Each URL should have the service type within it (hvac.com/commercial-ac-repair)

• Meta tags should include the service type and city

• An H1 tag should include the service type and city

• Geo-tagged images with alt text that includes service type and city

• Service type and city used a couple of types throughout the body of the text

3. Build authority to each page.

Now that Google knows what each page is about, it will start to include specific pages in the search results. However, your customers will not venture too far past page 1, so you’ll need to build some authority. Each page’s authority will ultimately determine your placement in the search engines.

Authority is built by inbound links to your website and webpages. Here are some easy ways to secure those links:

•HVAC Associations: Reach out to HVAC associations for inclusion on their member directory. Links from relevant associations provide good authority.

•Featured Snippets: To dramatically increase search engine rankings in the HVAC industry, it’s important to target and win featured snippets. Not only will it increase your organic traffic significantly with each featured snippet won, but you’ll be turning into the ultimate authority within your industry — and Google will reward you for that. I can’t stress the power of snippets enough. Should you write an article titled, "Why does my AC freeze up?" and win the snippet, you’ll build authority for your entire site and boost all pages in the search engines. In addition, you'll be providing Google what it wants — great content for its users.

The competition for Google’s affection is fierce, and HVAC companies need to get serious about SEO. Like it or not, organic search results are still king — for now.